my big concern with Boeheim is still the zone (steph curry effect?)

[Townie72]

Time to move the line back again, to NBA distance?

Hey, I'm just asking the question, and before you rip my head off, consider this. If the NBA is drafting on POTENTIAL, they might start to see a little less of it in first and second year players if they're hitting a lower percentage of threes. It would also, I think, benefit the players AND the NBA in the long run, because they'd be getting "better prepared" NBA prospects.

Moving the three point line back would actually be an interesting conversation to have on here.

It would actually improve the game, IMO, because it might encourage more inside passing. more driving to the basket and more shorter range jump shooting.

But it would mean a more lopsided game because it could shift back to being a game dominated more by big, athletic guys. And there aren't many of those and those there are gravitate to the top programs.

 

[Knicks411]

Great post. I would think the volume of 3's taken are also increasing?

Yeah, you can see a huge difference there. I'm not going to post all the years, but in 2002 the average team took 32.1% of their shots from 3, this past year was 36.4%. That's a pretty significant difference, and I think it makes the increase in accuracy we've seen even more impressive.

Time to move the line back again, to NBA distance?

Hey, I'm just asking the question, and before you rip my head off, consider this. If the NBA is drafting on POTENTIAL, they might start to see a little less of it in first and second year players if they're hitting a lower percentage of threes. It would also, I think, benefit the players AND the NBA in the long run, because they'd be getting "better prepared" NBA prospects.

Moving to the NBA line would be a big move (3 feet I believe), but if 3 point shooting stays where we are now or improves in the next few years, I don't think another foot should be out of the question.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Oh Boy! So you substituted your expertise for his.

Kudus for your honesty at least.

But can you see why other might find this not compelling?

Sweet. Appeal to Authority.

Good talk Townie. As usual.

 

[FrancoPizza]

176
44
13
125

Our Defensive 3FG% rankings since joining the ACC.

To my untrained eyes - this says 3 out of 4 years in the ACC we have been mediocre or just plain bad. It's not a huge sample size but the trend is very concerning that we cannot defend in this conference. I think that's Milly's point. We're not playing in the Big East anymore. And spot-up shooters are becoming increasingly commonplace on even bad teams.

For the zone to be effective, the team absolutely needs to be elite at defending the 3... and/or... we have to be able to force turnovers at an elite rate. We need to be elite in those areas to overcompensate for poor defensive rebounding % which is probably expected every year.

 

[Brooky03]

To my untrained eyes - this says 3 out of 4 years in the ACC we have been mediocre or just plain bad. It's not a huge sample size but the trend is very concerning that we cannot defend in this conference. I think that's Milly's point. We're not playing in the Big East anymore. And spot-up shooters are becoming increasingly commonplace on even bad teams.

For the zone to be effective, the team absolutely needs to be elite at defending the 3... and/or... we have to be able to force turnovers at an elite rate. We need to be elite in those areas to overcompensate for poor defensive rebounding % which is probably expected every year.

Top 50 is not mediocre or bad, it's good. We've been good twice, bad once, and mediocre-bad once.

 

[Knicks411]

To my untrained eyes - this says 3 out of 4 years in the ACC we have been mediocre or just plain bad. It's not a huge sample size but the trend is very concerning that we cannot defend in this conference. I think that's Milly's point. We're not playing in the Big East anymore. And spot-up shooters are becoming increasingly commonplace on even bad teams.

For the zone to be effective, the team absolutely needs to be elite at defending the 3... and/or... we have to be able to force turnovers at an elite rate. We need to be elite in those areas to overcompensate for poor defensive rebounding % which is probably expected every year.

The only thing I would say is that there are over 300 teams in the country, 125th out of 330 or whatever isn't really bad. It's certainly not good by any stretch. But for example, UNC is 114th in the country in 3 point defense, they're doing ok. Xavier and Butler are both around 80.

 

[SoBeCuse]

It's not scrap thw zone, damnit! Why not mix things up and give another look?

I actually think there were more games where our 2pt FG% defense killed us. Does anybody have numbers for that? Yes we refused to guard the 3 at times, especially the one guy in the scouting report every game. But, how many freaking dunks did we give up? Lobs at an all time level, imo. The defensive rebounding was atrocious and/or the back line defense was oblivious. The initial defense would be fine at times and/or teams would take bad shots. Then they would get it back again, and again...

 

[SWC75]

Well you can say it was a good decision, but we don't really know if playing man would have produced more wins because he refuses to try. That is my main underlying issue. When ND was shredding the zone, shooting well, and dominating you HAVE to switch up your defense. That inability is just being flat out stubborn I'm sorry.

And the "token pressure" you're describing isn't token pressure. That's a full court trap. Token pressure is a 3/4 light pressure getting the guards to pass the ball back and forth a few times on their way up the court; forcing them to start their offense later in the shot clock.

We went to two Final Fours and had two other #1 ranked teams playing all zone. And whatever you want to call it, what I described was being used effectively by several teams in the NCAA tournament. Our press seems to have four guys all in the front court, which opens us up to too many fast breaks.

 

[Knicks411]

It's not scrap thw zone, damnit! Why not mix things up and give another look?

I actually think there were more games where our 2pt FG% defense killed us. Does anybody have numbers for that? Yes we refused to guard the 3 at times, especially the one guy in the scouting report every game. But, how many freaking dunks did we give up? Lobs at an all time level, imo. The defensive rebounding was atrocious and/or the back line defense was oblivious. The initial defense would be fine at times and/or teams would take bad shots. Then they would get it back again, and again...

We were 125th in 3 point defense, 179th in 2 point. So worse in 2 point.

Something else i just noticed; we allowed 42.7% of opponent shots from 3. This was 328th (as in we allowed a very high% of shots from 3); the nature of the zone is it allows a lot of 3's, but this is one of our highest %. Last year we allowed 39.7% of shots from 3, the year before was down at 37.4%. We are generally in the 37-40 range, though you would expect it to trend up in general because everyone shoots more 3's.

But just as an example, in 2015 we allowed 31.4% success from 3, and 37.4% of opponent attempts from 3. This year, we gave up 2,017 shots. Using the numbers from 2015, we would have allowed 754 3's attempted, and about 237 would have gone in. Instead, we allowed 863 3's, and 295 makes.

The bottom line is we both allowed more 3 pointers to be taken (doesn't have to be a bad thing necessarily) and a higher % of them to go in (this is obviously always a bad thing)

 

[SoBeCuse]

Wow, good stuff. Thanks. Yes, they need to allow fewer threes for sure naturally.

It was more the dunks that was pissing me off. Over and over. Lobs and lobs. We must have been on the wrong end of a Sportscenter Top 10 a record amount of times.

 

[HOFCeluck]

We went to two Final Fours and had two other #1 ranked teams playing all zone. And whatever you want to call it, what I described was being used effectively by several teams in the NCAA tournament. Our press seems to have four guys all in the front court, which opens us up to too many fast breaks.

I Mean, our press was the difference in the Gonzaga and Uva game. No one who can rub a couple neurons together is going to advocate switching Ds in 2013.

 

[Knicks411]

There has also been some research that indicates that the key to 3 point defense isn't as much in forcing misses, but in preventing 3 pointers in general. That is, defenses have less control over how teams shoot it when they do, but they can prevent them from shooting it. This kinda does seem to run counter to our strategy, and I'm not saying it's 100% right. Just throwing it out there

 

[SWC75]

It's not scrap thw zone, damnit! Why not mix things up and give another look?

I actually think there were more games where our 2pt FG% defense killed us. Does anybody have numbers for that? Yes we refused to guard the 3 at times, especially the one guy in the scouting report every game. But, how many freaking dunks did we give up? Lobs at an all time level, imo. The defensive rebounding was atrocious and/or the back line defense was oblivious. The initial defense would be fine at times and/or teams would take bad shots. Then they would get it back again, and again...

The Stat Signal!

TWO POINT FIELD GOALS
(Best each game in bold - in italics if tied)

Syracuse 27/42 = .643 Colgate 12/27 = .444
Syracuse 20/32 = .625 Holy Cross 8/23 = .348
Syracuse 17/36 = .472 Monmouth 16/35 = .457
Syracuse 24/44 = .545 So. Carolina St. 14/43 = .326
Syracuse 8/29 = .276 South Carolina 19/38 = .500
Syracuse 15/32 = .469 Wisconsin 18/36 = .500
Syracuse 12/28 = .429 North Florida 14/24 = .583
Syracuse 8/28 = .286 Connecticut 9/26 = .346
Syracuse 19/32 = .594 Boston U. 9/28 = .321
Syracuse 18/37 = .486 Georgetown 19/39 = .487
Syracuse 22/35 = .629 E. Michigan 18/40 = .450
Syracuse 18/43 = .419 St. John’s 22/35 = .629
Syracuse 20/41 = .488 Cornell 18/33 = .545

Pre-conference: 228/459 = .497..... 196/427 = .459
In Wins: 161/290 = .555..... 109/253 = .430
In Losses: 67/169 = .396...... 87/174 = .500
We won this stat 6 times and won 6 of those games. We lost the stat 7 times and lost 5 of those games.

Syracuse 20/48 = .417 Boston College 20/37 = .541
Syracuse 17/25 = .680 Miami 10/28 = .357
Syracuse 14/27 = .519 Pittsburgh 14/38 = .368
Syracuse 23/48 = .479 Virginia Tech 20/37 = .541
Syracuse 22/38 = .579 Boston College 11/26 = .423
Syracuse 16/35 = .457 North Carolina 28/44 = .636
Syracuse 17/36 = .472 Notre Dame 18/33 = .545
Syracuse 16/30 = .533 Wake Forest 19/35 = .543
Syracuse 16/34 = .471 Florida State 14/35 = .400
Syracuse 17/31 = .548 NC State 20/34 = .588
Syracuse 16/24 = .667 Virginia 12/26 = .462
Syracuse 19/31 = .613 Clemson 20/32= .625
Syracuse 20/40 = .500 Pittsburgh 18/36 = .500
Syracuse 18/31 = .581 Louisville 18/37 = .486
Syracuse 17/40 = .425 Georgia Tech 22/43 = .512
Syracuse 19/36 = .528 Duke 15/31 = .484
Syracuse 12/27 = .444 Louisville 24/38 = .632
Syracuse 14/30 = .467 Georgia Tech 20/37 = .541

Conference: 313/611 = .512...... 323/627 = .515
In Wins: 152/275 = .553...... 133/293 = .454
In Losses: 161/336 = .479...... 190/334 = .569
We won this stat 7 times and won 6 of those games. We lost the stat 10 times and lost 6 of those games. We were even once and lost that game.

Syracuse 12/23 = .522 Miami 13/28 = .464
Syracuse 20/31 = .645 UNC Greensboro 26/42 = .619
Syracuse 21/35 = .600 Mississippi 14/30 = .467

Post season: 53/89 = .596..... 53/100 = .530
In wins: 20/31 = .645..... 26/42 = .619
In losses: 33/58 = .569..... 27/58 =.466
We won this stat in all three games but lost two of them.

Overall: 594/1159 = .513..... 572/1154 = .496
In wins: 333/596 = .559...... 268/588 = .456
In losses: 261/563 = .464...... 304/566 = .537
We won this stat 16 times and won 13 of those games. We lost this stat 17 times and lost 11 of those games. We were even once and lost that game.

 

[SWC75]

And teams shredded our press. Once they got beyond 3/4 court it was an automatic basket and their 10 point lead became a 12 point lead.

Chukwu had no idea how to play it and we put four guys in the front court at once, which leaves gaps behind them. Even so, we pressed effectively at times later in the year.

 

[Cusefan0307]

We gave up 34.3 from 3. That's the equivalent of giving up 51.5% from 2. We gave up 49% from 2 on the year. We were better off forcing 2 pointers than we were 3's this year. I'm not sure JB agrees with that, but thats the facts.

It was worse in conference games. 58% true shooting from 3 and 51 % shooting from 2. We need to cut down the amount of 3's taken going forward. That's what Duke and Louisville do and it's part of the reason they are better than us.

 

[orangenirvana]

It's not a huge sample size but the trend is very concerning that we cannot defend in this conference. I think that's Milly's point. We're not playing in the Big East anymore.

Nah. The Big East conference that SU used to play against was just as great as the ACC SU currently plays in. Recent struggles are about our personnel, not an increase in competition.

 

[SoBeCuse]

We gave up 34.3 from 3. That's the equivalent of giving up 51.5% from 2. We gave up 49% from 2 on the year. We were better off forcing 2 pointers than we were 3's this year. I'm not sure JB agrees with that, but thats the facts. It was worse in conference games. 58% true shooting from 3 and 51 % shooting from 3. We need to cut down the amount of 3's taken going forward. That's what Duke and Louisville do and it's part of the reason they are better than us.

Yup, and Michigan proceeded to beat UL in the paint. Wagner and DJ Wilson can ball too.

 

[Scooch]

What frustrates me about the zone isn't the scheme itself. We know that on average it works well when we have the right players to execute it.

It's that the zone often causes us to play at a pace that resembles sludge mixed with molasses being poured through quick sand. This year our only hope was to outscore teams and we almost always let the opponent completely dictate the tempo.

We attempted 57 shots per game this season. Last season it was 56. We needed more possessions this year and the zone kept us from achieving that.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Good stuff SWC. Very nice.

 

[CorduroyG]

move the 3 point line back. these games turn into 3 point contests. its too easy for players nowadays. our acc tourny game against miami, we have a nice comeback, grab a lead, and we let foreign dude drill back to back 3s like theyre layups and that was basically the game. i was watching notre dame-west virginia last weekend, every time notre dame made it close west virginia would just come down and drill a 3. to me thats not basketball, its a 3 point contest. whoever can shoot better from 3 is gonna win.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

I know this has a "this time, it's different" ring to it.

I think Boeheim does teach the zone as well as anyone could ever do it. But I still think that a lot of the success of the zone is that Boeheim is smarter than the dumb players who take the shots that Boeheim gives them. I always say that he is so intuitive about probabilities. He just understands them on the fly. I think the zone has a good three point percentage against because he entices bad shooters into taking stupid shots

I dwell on the fact that SU was GREAT from three point land this year and the last time I checked there were 40 some teams better than they were. Shooting has improved so much across the whole country. I think it's a bunch of kids who practice their @sses off pretending to be Steph Curry and spending less time trying to be dunk champions.

I worry that his recruiting will naturally decline, we won't have the superman small forward to save the day, and he will have no choice but to dare kids to shoot who will make the shot.

Agree with your title. Disagree with your reasoning...

Men's college basketball scoring hitting new lows

Why Zone Defenses Are Taking Over

I think there is a convergence of two things that is boxing JB, and his zone, into a corner.

The first is that so many teams are now playing zone at least some of the time that teams see it much more often - so they prepare for it more and they know how to attack it.

This means that you cannot just play zone anymore, you have to play a really good zone to have an effective defense. This was not the case 10 and 15 years ago. 10 and 15 years ago, the zone was such a rarity that even a mediocre zone was tough for teams to attack.

The second is that this year showed that player continuity is essential for having a really good zone. Plugging in new guys all the time means too many players who don't know how to play it properly. And when you have too many guys who are trying to learn the zone, you get this year's defense. Ugly.

Using SWC's post about early entries to the draft, it is clear that high roster turnover is just going to be a fact of life for upper echelon (and even not so upper echelon) programs.

So you combine a defense that now needs to be really good to be effective with a defense that needs players to stick around to really play it well and you are setting yourself up for failure unless you change your recruiting tactics and recruit mostly guys who are going to be here for 3 and 4 and 5 years - which means having a talent level that is really hard to win championships with...

It is a conundrum...

 

[HoustonCuse]

It's not scrap thw zone, damnit! Why not mix things up and give another look?

I actually think there were more games where our 2pt FG% defense killed us. Does anybody have numbers for that? Yes we refused to guard the 3 at times, especially the one guy in the scouting report every game. But, how many freaking dunks did we give up? Lobs at an all time level, imo. The defensive rebounding was atrocious and/or the back line defense was oblivious. The initial defense would be fine at times and/or teams would take bad shots. Then they would get it back again, and again...

Boeheim's rationale, as I understand it, is that with limited practice time, he has chosen to concentrate on the single defense. You may not agree or you may point to lack of coaching ability to fit instruction in more than one defense into allocated practice time, but the rationale is sound. It stands to reason that concentrating all available time on a single defense would allow it to be better than splitting the time between two or more defenses. It certainly maximizes the potential of that one defense. Possibly that trade off is not worth it when you factor in actual game situations where a change in defense could disrupt the other team, but these are debatable points. I reject the idea that it is a lazy or wrongheaded approach to focus on the one defense. We've observed that some squads pick it up and commit to it more than others and it is that factor that is primary, not the scheme.

I will add, that this year JB did see it coming. He knew this team was going to struggle to pick up the zone and that is why we saw some M2M in the preconference season. He saw that they weren't great at that either and went back to marshaling all resources towards getting the zone better. Again - we could debate that, was it his fault they couldn't do well enough in either defense, I don't know. But he had to make a decision and he made it.

 

[FrancoPizza]

We went to two Final Fours and had two other #1 ranked teams playing all zone. .

This was before the recent trend where every team is jacking up 3s. Teams have generally realized that effective FG% favors shooting more 3's. It's also one of the reasons more teams are opting to speed up the game.

It just makes our tempo stand out like a sore thumb. I would love to see a UCLA-style in the dome - would be the fastest way to get butts in seats.

 

[OttoMets]

The Stat Signal!

TWO POINT FIELD GOALS
(Best each game in bold - in italics if tied)

Syracuse 27/42 = .643 Colgate 12/27 = .444
Syracuse 20/32 = .625 Holy Cross 8/23 = .348
Syracuse 17/36 = .472 Monmouth 16/35 = .457
Syracuse 24/44 = .545 So. Carolina St. 14/43 = .326
Syracuse 8/29 = .276 South Carolina 19/38 = .500
Syracuse 15/32 = .469 Wisconsin 18/36 = .500
Syracuse 12/28 = .429 North Florida 14/24 = .583
Syracuse 8/28 = .286 Connecticut 9/26 = .346
Syracuse 19/32 = .594 Boston U. 9/28 = .321
Syracuse 18/37 = .486 Georgetown 19/39 = .487
Syracuse 22/35 = .629 E. Michigan 18/40 = .450
Syracuse 18/43 = .419 St. John’s 22/35 = .629
Syracuse 20/41 = .488 Cornell 18/33 = .545

Pre-conference: 228/459 = .497... 196/427 = .459
In Wins: 161/290 = .555... 109/253 = .430
In Losses: 67/169 = .396... 87/174 = .500
We won this stat 6 times and won 6 of those games. We lost the stat 7 times and lost 5 of those games.

Syracuse 20/48 = .417 Boston College 20/37 = .541
Syracuse 17/25 = .680 Miami 10/28 = .357
Syracuse 14/27 = .519 Pittsburgh 14/38 = .368
Syracuse 23/48 = .479 Virginia Tech 20/37 = .541
Syracuse 22/38 = .579 Boston College 11/26 = .423
Syracuse 16/35 = .457 North Carolina 28/44 = .636
Syracuse 17/36 = .472 Notre Dame 18/33 = .545
Syracuse 16/30 = .533 Wake Forest 19/35 = .543
Syracuse 16/34 = .471 Florida State 14/35 = .400
Syracuse 17/31 = .548 NC State 20/34 = .588
Syracuse 16/24 = .667 Virginia 12/26 = .462
Syracuse 19/31 = .613 Clemson 20/32= .625
Syracuse 20/40 = .500 Pittsburgh 18/36 = .500
Syracuse 18/31 = .581 Louisville 18/37 = .486
Syracuse 17/40 = .425 Georgia Tech 22/43 = .512
Syracuse 19/36 = .528 Duke 15/31 = .484
Syracuse 12/27 = .444 Louisville 24/38 = .632
Syracuse 14/30 = .467 Georgia Tech 20/37 = .541

Conference: 313/611 = .512... 323/627 = .515
In Wins: 152/275 = .553... 133/293 = .454
In Losses: 161/336 = .479... 190/334 = .569
We won this stat 7 times and won 6 of those games. We lost the stat 10 times and lost 6 of those games. We were even once and lost that game.

Syracuse 12/23 = .522 Miami 13/28 = .464
Syracuse 20/31 = .645 UNC Greensboro 26/42 = .619
Syracuse 21/35 = .600 Mississippi 14/30 = .467

Post season: 53/89 = .596... 53/100 = .530
In wins: 20/31 = .645... 26/42 = .619
In losses: 33/58 = .569... 27/58 =.466
We won this stat in all three games but lost two of them.

Overall: 594/1159 = .513... 572/1154 = .496
In wins: 333/596 = .559... 268/588 = .456
In losses: 261/563 = .464... 304/566 = .537
We won this stat 16 times and won 13 of those games. We lost this stat 17 times and lost 11 of those games. We were even once and lost that game.

.286 from two against Connecticut.

Wow.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Boeheim's rationale, as I understand it, is that with limited practice time, he has chosen to concentrate on the single defense. You may not agree or you may point to lack of coaching ability to fit instruction in more than one defense into allocated practice time, but the rationale is sound. It stands to reason that concentrating all available time on a single defense would allow it to be better than splitting the time between two or more defenses. It certainly maximizes the potential of that one defense. Possibly that trade off is not worth it when you factor in actual game situations where a change in defense could disrupt the other team, but these are debatable points. I reject the idea that it is a lazy or wrongheaded approach to focus on the one defense. We've observed that some squads pick it up and commit to it more than others and it is that factor that is primary, not the scheme.

I will add, that this year JB did see it coming. He knew this team was going to struggle to pick up the zone and that is why we saw some M2M in the preconference season. He saw that they weren't great at that either and went back to marshaling all resources towards getting the zone better. Again - we could debate that, was it his fault they couldn't do well enough in either defense, I don't know. But he had to make a decision and he made it.

How does Pitino have time to practice 3 defenses?